Escapee Outsmarted Police, As Far As He Went

Fugitive Outsmarted Police, Far As He Went

For 18 days, Frank Vandever outsmarted prison officials, police in two states and the FBI.

But the transvestite stockbroker and murderer ultimately was caught because he had no money and no plan for what to do after he escaped from Somers prison by cutting a hole in a fence.

Vandever and another inmate, Ronald Rutan, drifted, broke and bored, less than 100 miles from the prison they had escaped from.

Rutan, especially, was disappointed with life on the lam; he had expected it to be more glamorous, said Enfield Det. William Moryto, who interviewed both escapees after their capture.

Rutan expected to go someplace such as Southern California, but found that the cross-country trip was impossible without money, Moryto said.

"He appeared to be remorseful and regretted leaving the prison," Moryto said. "He had different expectations about what life would be like once he was free.

"They had no plan once they got beyond prison grounds. I was surprised. They were just going day to day."

Police caught Rutan Thursday at a low-budget motel in Spring Valley, N.Y., where he and Vandever had checked into an Econo Lodge hotel about a week after the escape. There, they become stuck trying to gather money.

Police caught up with Vandever two days later in a stolen car he had parked at a busy shopping mall in Paramus, N.J.

His escape from Somers was well planned, Connecticut State Police Maj. John S. Jacewicz said, but what they intended to do afterward was anybody's guess. In fact, police said Sunday, they were bedfuddled by the very aimlessness of Vandever, who shot one of his clients in the back in 1988.

"He's one of the few that got out of Somers -- that's not an everyday occurrence," Jacewicz said. "Does that make him a cut above the rest? I don't know. Some of this stuff doesn't appear to make any sense at all. You make yourself crazy trying to second-guess these guys."

Police got dozens of reports of sightings of Vandever and Rutan after their escape, some of the most colorful accounts coming from

the area near the prison. But Rutan told Moryto that most of the reports were bogus.

Rutan said he and Vandever never drank draft beer at the Penalty Box Cafe in Enfield, nor did they stop at The Bridge cafe in East Windsor later that night. They did not run past the Ramada Inn in East Windsor, nor did one of them go to Steiger's department store in the Enfield Square Mall dressed as a woman to supplement his post-escape wardrobe.

But Rutan told Moryto he thought that he had run past the 7-Eleven store on Elm Street in Enfield the night of their escape, when a clerk reported seeing them.

And both Vandever and Rutan admitted tying up a husband-and-wife cleaning crew that discovered them in an Enfield office building New Year's Day, Moryto said.

He said they broke into the building on impulse and might have been planning to call friends to pick them up. The appearance of the cleaning team was a stroke of luck, and it brought them a free Jeep and pocket change.

Rutan told Moryto that the men drifted, living on small change, and lived out of the Jeep for the next week.

At a time when law-enforcement officials expected them to flee to some remote city, the men got stalled in Rockland County, N.Y., contacting former friends and business associates of Vandever to beg for money.

"I am suprised they were this close," said Lt. Eugene Sullivan, head of the Connecticut State Police Eastern District Major Crime Squad. "If it were me, I would not have been."

Rutan told Moryto that he was miserable in Spring Valley and felt "cooped up" in his room. He and Vandever dined on fruit, junk food and sandwiches they bought at a Shop Rite supermarket across the highway.

Vandever, who checked in as Bill Weston from Maine, appeared to enjoy his stay at the Econo Lodge, employees said. He went for a jog every morning and made small talk with the motel manager, complimenting her on her wardrobe and hairdo. He called her many nicknames, including "Spunky," she said.

"He was friendly -- he said he liked it here," she said. "He was very gentlemanly."

Vandever, who had once lived in nearby Orangetown and worked as a car salesman in New Jersey, apparently did not get much help from his friends. He was having trouble paying for his $150-a-week room, the motel manager said, when four FBI agents closed in during a Thursday stakeout.

The agents tackled and handcuffed Rutan, who throughout his career as a burglar was never adept at getting away with anything. Vandever got away from the agents by jumping over a chain-link fence, then eluded a massive air-and-ground manhunt for two days.

Vandever appeared under their noses again Saturday and stole a car that was left idling in the Econo Lodge parking lot.

Police and the FBI were criticized for letting Vandever get away twice, but insist that their manhunt kept Vandever in a sealed-off area.